The Mindset of a Leader

Leaders come from all different backgrounds and cultures. Some would say that they are born with leadership properties (the specific traits of the person) and others will argue that they can be formed and molded into leaders (emergent leadership, transformational leadership, charismatic leadership, etc.). This article analyzes the mindsets of individuals who believe or want to believe that they could become leaders. The article also looks at those who feel that they are limited in their abilities to be a leader.

The Mindset

The one area that was very interesting to read was about the different mindset that individuals have from one another. The mindsets are broken up into two segments. There are those who believe that they can grow and change to reach a new level of leadership. Through some untapped potential they could get better at what they were set out to do. Those people have, what Carol Dweck, called a “growth-mindset”. The flipside to that would be the individual who thinks that their talents and abilities will only be able to take them so far in life. This thought process seems to derive from the thought of failure as being a terrible outcome rather that a way to improve oneself. Again, Carol Dweck calls this a “fixed-mindset”.

These “mindset” are very similar to the idea that leadership is based on traits for those individuals who are in the “fixed-mindset”. Others in the “growth-mindset” seem to be on the idea that leadership skills can be developed and the individuals are not necessarily born leaders.

Why are they in that Mindset?

Opinions as to why people would consider themselves to be or not to be a leader seemed to revolve around the environments in which that they learned and developed, at least for post high school education. Those who were supported by the notion that they could become better, to evolve, where much more likely to feel that they could grow. They were considered to be growth-minded individuals. The author of the article stated that he was a graduate of the Naval Academy, and being a graduate he had a strong sense of leadership once he graduated. The Naval Academy set the expectation for their students to be effective leaders. The author also suggests that those individuals in state universities are well prepared in terms of knowledge and practical skills, but they are lacking in leadership skills where little emphasis is placed.

-Brandon Leitschuh

http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jun2009/ca20090619_819188.htm?chan=careers_managing+your+company+page_top+stories

Influential Woman Leaders

International Business Machine Corps has announced that a female, Virginia "Ginni" Rometty, will be the next chief executive office for the company.  She is succeeding Sam Palmisano and is the first female CEO in the company's 100 year history.  Rometty is currently head of sales and marketing, so with her knowledge of the company and sales, she should be able to keep the company's profit increasing.
The company has had such a profit growth that it is at thheir highest share price since 1915 and in order to keep that going, Rometty is going to have to lead her company to continue to go down the right path. Sam will stay with the company as a chairman and the move will not be in affect until January 1st.  Palmisano has announced that between 2010 and 2015, the company plans on adding 20 to revenue.  This is give a tough task for Rometty, but Palmisano has liked what he has seen in her and believes she was the right fit for the job.  Palmisano says she is superb in the operational leadership standpoint and has already helped the company grow.  Virginia first caught his eye in 2002 when she helped complete the $3.9 billion acquisition of PwC consulting, which was the largest in IBM's history.
Rometty is originally from Chicago and got her degree from Northwestern.  One of her first jobs was with General Motors doing an internship and then landed her job with IBM.
Throughout the article, I learn of her attributes and what she brings to the organization but I think she will succeed as the CEO because she has experience.  She was able to work her way up through the organization and learn the ropes.  She had enough experience to have her managers/bosses trust her and be able to feel comfortable enough to promote her.  She recently went back to Northwestern and gave a commencements speech and encouraged all the students to challenge themselves and be able to think and use their skills.  I think with that mind set, always wanting to win another challenge and keep going, she posses the skills to be a powerful leader and has the ability to get the company growing.
She is going to have 426,000 subordinates and will have to make sure they are all on the same page in order to keep the profit rising.  I do  not think there is any challenge she is afraid of and sounds very positive going into her new position.
- Matt Kester

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-25/ibm-names-rometty-to-succeed-palmisano-as-first-female-ceo.html

AOL has big dreams.

What has AOL been doing and how do they plan to succeed?
AOL CEO, Tim Armstrong, has big hopes for the internet service AOL.  HE wanted to become the third largest internet service provider in the world.  His business currently stands at fifth behind Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.  His plans to expand and advertise make me look at him as a leader more than a manager.
Tim Armstrong has been pushing for his employees to step up their efforts since last year when he made up a slogan "Beat the Internet."  Knowing that the internet is a huge, ginormous service/idea, he was implying to his employees to think big.  He wanted new and fresh ideas.
I like Tim's mind set because he says in an interview that he knows it doesn't sound very ambitious to be the third largerest in the internet industry, but when you look up what you going against, it is pretty damn impressive.  He has ideas to merge with yahoo in order to compete with the top two, Facebook and Google, but more short term goals and being thought of every day.  For instance, he wants to expand AOL to 12 different countries before the year is over and continue to advertise for more oppurtunities.

Why is Tim a good fit for AOL?

Leadership involves influencing people and i think Tim Armstrong as the influential trait and a motivational attitude which helps him be a more effective leader.  The way he was to be one of the world lager internet service is larger than anything I can think of.  When trying to compete with companies such as Facebook and Google, the man in charge has to be ready for a battle and know how to lead a group of employees to think out of the box and always stay fresh.  Tim is the founder of the United Football League and is a former president of Google's America operations.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/09/20/aol-ceo-tim-armstrong-our-goal-is-to-be-no-3/

-Matt Kester

The Future of International Development and Conflict Resolution

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rahimkanani/2011/09/19/dr-david-kilcullen-on-the-future-of-conflict-and-international-development/

How would you try to bring peace to the world? Dr. David Kilcullen is the founding CEO and President of Caerus, a group specializing in design of positive human influence in complex and conflicted environments. They take community development programs to a new level and focus in areas like Afghanistan. Its hard to say exactly what they do in each situation, but they have major projects in the fields of education, technology, energy, analytics and humanitarian assistance.

What makes him a leader?
Dr. Kilcullen is leading all kinds of change. When he saw traditional organizations, like charities or governments, were not effective enough in creating sustainable peace in the war-torn areas, he established this meaningful vision and direction and aligned a team to get started on Caerus. The trick with their business is it faces not just one old problem, but a complex one which as Dr. Kilcullen puts it, "the world’s most difficult problems – conflict, crime, energy shortage, poverty, climate and environmental degradation, disease – overlap in mutually exacerbating ways that make it extremely difficult for any one discipline to address them." To complement the inspiring and motivating vision of social good is how much the program enables those involved and who benefit from it. When a small team is deployed to a community, they actually asess the people and communicate their goals and receive the groups needs. His strategy of addressing each situation by its own, sets an example for how to accomplish these kinds of goals. He is revolutionizing the way we see organizations as a whole.

So what does this all mean?
Dr. David Kilcullen leads by example and exhibits authentic leadership. His experience and knowledge were reformulated into a vision for addressing these overlapping problems. The work he led to creation is original and is based on values. The strategies he used in making the organization reverberates throughout it. Although this organization is less than two years old, it now runs through about ten million in revenue and has a multi-year backlog of work. The social judgement skills needed to rally this support are seen in the perspective taking each team uses when facing a community. Because he refuses to impose western ideas on these people, they were more trusting. The affect? In Baghdad, their efforts supported locals durimg an effort against Al Quida which brought about a ninety-five percent reduction in civilian casulties in a three month period.

His complex solution has created a community in which the followers, whether workers or beneficiaries, who are motivated and inspired. They follow his strategies and are exhibiting them in many ways. How do you see this energy exemplified? Does he exhibit any other kinds of leadership?

The Growing Gap Between the Leader and Follower

http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/oct2008/ca20081024_293040.htm?chan=careers_managing+your+company+page_top+stories
        
          There are many aspects that define one in a leadership position. Some would say that leaders are born into the position and others are molded to fit the position. At any rate, the leader must make an effort to actively listen their followers for the company to be successful. There are certain CEO's that have received the term "Imperial" CEO for their leadership style. These leaders distance themselves from the ones that they lead. This makes it difficult for their followers to input their ideas and aid in the decision making process of those in the driver’s seat.

What types of competencies do these leaders possess?

          We can look at the three competencies that a leader should possess. Problem-Solving Skills are those that require the leader to come up with a solution for problems that are out of the ordinary and unusual in nature. Leaders with the "imperial" way of leading would have to be pretty good with their problem-solving skills. They are not going to want anyone else to help them with their decision, especially their followers. Social Judgment Skills are the capacity to understand people and social systems that would enable the leader to solve difficult problems within the organization.  A CEO with this "imperial" mindset might have a strong set of problem-solving skills, but they would not receive any help from the ones they lead because they make it increasingly difficult for the followers to have an input. Knowledge is the competency that relates to the application and implementation of problem-solving skills in organizations. This skill would be lacking in a leader of this type. They would have difficulty in implementing their problem-solving skills because they would not actively communicate with their followers who would most likely oversee the implementation process.

What would this leader's style be?

          Most of these leaders are concerned for the financial assets of the company. This makes it hard for the followers to address these leaders when the leader's main concern is for the bottom line. I would categorize these leaders into the Authority-Compliance Management section of the leadership grid. This styles approach is focused on a concern for results and has minimal human element interference. Communication to the followers is usually for the purpose of instructions about the task at hand.

-Brandon Leitschuh

Climbing the ladder at DuPont

By: Tyler Wiesemeyer

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/duponts-ellen-kullman-on-her-risky-path-to-the-ceo-job-09152011.html

          For the common person giving up your dream job for an opportunity that seemed to be destined to fail would be an easy proposition to turn down.  However when Ellen Kullman was presented with just that she hesitantly accepted the proposal.  At first Ellen though that it was a suicide mission to start a consulting business around the company’s safety practices because DuPont was an entity that sold products, not services.  Also DuPont had been notorious for moving someone out of the executive realm by asking them to “take on a special project,” and furthermore give up on your development as a manager/leader. 

Is Helen a Leader or a manager?              

This would have been an easy way for Ellen to go about her decision on the proposal, but she took a completely different path.  Ellen decided that in order to really prove herself a leader she must spearhead this task.  Although her mentors and spouse urged her not to embark on the mission, she did so in hopes of unveiling her conceptual skills.  As skills theory sates, there is no doubt that Ellen had high technical and human skills with her previous endeavors as vice president and a successful engineer.  But this mission really showed her ability to create a vision and bring to life a multimillion dollar business.  

Did the exemplification of Skills and traits slingshot Ellen into the CEO position?

                In this example I feel as if skills and traits absolutely legitimized Ellen as the right person for the position of CEO at DuPont.  Her bravery, ingenuity, and ability to materialize a highly successful service based project within a product driven company clearly showed that Ellen has personal, technical, and conceptual skills to say the least.  Also traits such as intelligence, dertermination, and self-confidence were identified throughout the process.  Although there may be some discrepancies with the legitimacy of skills and trait theories respectively, I feel as if they are very good indicators of a successful leader when used correctly and in accordance with the situation.

                Please feel free to comment on the article and answer these questions in your own words, as well as sparking some conversation with your own opinions on Ellen’s story if you so desire.  Hope you all enjoy this success story as much as I did.

Introduction

Hello. We are Team 4 in MQM 382 Organizational Leadership. Our team consists of four members: Brandon Leitschuh, Tyler Wiesemeyer, Matt Kester, and Matt Mimnangh. During the course of this semester we will be discussing current leadership events in the world today. We will be discussing the qualities of those  leaders, their differing leadership styles and overall effectiveness. Our blog will most closely resemble the theme found in the " Keeping It Real Blog".